Civilized people feel a loneliness and even an extreme melancholia in the jungle of the mind that may make stillness a terrifying experience, but we can pass through this barrier if we will learn to understand it. Then we would discover, as the Indians did long ago, that to stand in solitude on a mountain top at sunrise or sunset, or by a waterfall in some hidden canyon of ethereal beauty, and to absorb this majesty with utter peace and awe, in which the soul merges with creation, and self is forgotten, is to become one with a joy and happiness so tremendous that no mere earthly pleasure can compare.
floating indifferent in eddies of
rooftop air, circling the black
chimney-cowls,
a spring night entered
my mind through the tight-closed window,
wearing
a loose Russian shirt of
light silk.
For this, then,
that slanting
line was left, that crack, the pane
never replaced.